Alice in Puzzle-Land: A Carrollian Tale for Children Under Eighty (Dover Recreational Math) (Paperback)

Description

"A charming and challenging adventure." -- Wordplay, the Crossword Blog of The New York TimesAlice and her friends return for another romp through Wonderland and the Looking-Glass with these eighty-eight puzzles, paradoxes, and logic problems. Raymond M. Smullyan's characters speak and behave like the originals, and their puzzles abound in typical Carrollian word play, logic problems, and dark philosophical paradoxes. Isaac Asimov described this book as "amusing, entertaining, and surprisingly educational. And it might just send you back to reread Alice."Readers of all ages will delight in the charming stories and the wealth of ingenious puzzles. Written by a distinguished mathematician and creator of popular puzzle books, this volume requires no background in formal logic. The puzzles become progressively more complex, and complete solutions appear at the end. Puzzle authority Martin Gardner provides an Introduction to the text, which is enhanced by sixty charming illustrations. "An ingenious book," declared the Boston Globe, "magnificent for those who like conundrums, amusing for those who don't, and a tribute in itself to the genius of Lewis Carroll."

About the Author

Raymond Smullyan received his PhD from Princeton University and taught at Dartmouth, Princeton, Indiana University, and New York's Lehman College. Best known for his mathematical and creative logic puzzles and games, he was also a concert pianist and a magician. He wrote over a dozen books of logic puzzles and texts on mathematical logic. Raymond Smullyan: The Merry PranksterRaymond Smullyan (1919-2017), mathematician, logician, magician, creator of extraordinary puzzles, philosopher, pianist, and man of many parts. The first Dover book by Raymond Smullyan was First-Order Logic (1995). Recent years have brought a number of his magical books of logic and math puzzles: The Lady or the Tiger (2009); Satan, Cantor and Infinity (2009); an original, never-before-published collection, King Arthur in Search of His Dog and Other Curious Puzzles (2010); and Set Theory and the Continuum Problem (with Melvin Fitting, also reprinted by Dover in 2010). More will be coming in subsequent years.In the Author's Own Words: "Recently, someone asked me if I believed in astrology. He seemed somewhat puzzled when I explained that the reason I don't is that I'm a Gemini." "Some people are always critical of vague statements. I tend rather to be critical of precise statements: they are the only ones which can correctly be labeled 'wrong.'" -- Raymond Smullyan